A lot of us are programmers or work with software which performs batch-style computation. The result is that our daily work habits look like "do some coding or input file generation, start simulation/code compilation/code testing suite, wait for 1-10 minutes, analyze results, repeat with modification."

The waiting step is killer. You are disinclined to use that waiting time for other productive tasks because it's not really enough time to do anything meaningful. You also don't want to start early on the next pass of modifications because you could get confused about what step you're on versus what results you're looking at. So there's a powerful motivation to do something impulsive like checking email again, or worse, checking your hedonic distraction websites.

This has been a problem for me for many years, and I've recently tried to address it by bringing to bear some various lesswrong memeplex concepts to attempt what I'm calling the "productivity trance." I keep a pad of paper where I make a tick mark every time I successfully resist an impulse to do something other than what I should be doing, essentially training the "make a tick mark, feel satisfaction" habit to replace the "check Facebook" habit.

I've only started this recently, but I think the point of these rationality diaries is to share half-baked ideas so we can iterate faster.

edit: Realized it seems dumb that I'm calling it a "productivity trance" without context. Partly I call it this because I got the idea from the meditation style where you watch your thoughts, and calmly bring them back to focus on the meditation when you see them drifting. It has so far resulting in a kind of increased mindfulness and deeper insights into what I'm doing, because my attention is fully focused in my task.